Life's End
by Viper Jock
Summary: Told from the point of view of the Boss as she fights her final battle against Snake. She reflects on the life she has lived, the mistakes, the danger, the sacrifices and the missed opportunities, from World War 2 to the Cold War and all the way up to the present.
1. Chapter 1 - The Last of Her Children

Hi all. So I've had a few people message me recently asking about a Boss/Cobra Unit fic I did about a year ago. I'd taken it down for various reasons but since people keep asking, I've decided to post it back up. I've edited and re-jigged it in places since I've had some time to work on it, and I'll post up over the next couple of weeks.

It's got swearing, violence and sexual scenes, so if you're ten years old or whatever you... probably see worse on TV.

As always, any feedback is welcome. Enjoy!

"_The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst"_

**Chapter 1 – The Last of Her Children**

_September 2__nd__ 1964, Tselinoyarsk, USSR_

This is where it ends. Here, amongst the gently swaying flowers of Rokovoj Bereg, the Joy would at last meet her end. She wasn't afraid. She had faced death too many times to feel fear now. She had known it was coming, and had chosen her spot carefully.

She inhaled, tasting the scent of wild flowers and trees.

A good place to die.

"There is nothing more I can give you," she said quietly, staring at her opponent across the field.

The last of her children. The Pain, the Fury, the End and the Fear had all fallen at his hands, her former comrades laying down their lives so she could complete her final mission. He had defeated them all, growing stronger and more resolute with each victory until only she remained.

He was watching her now, weapon in hand, ready to defend himself but unwilling to attack.

Jack. Always the loyal soldier. Even now he couldn't bring himself to fight her. She was his commander, his mentor, his mother – the only family he had ever known. He loved her as she loved him, yet fate had placed them on opposite sides, and only one of them would live to see tomorrow.

Yesterday's friend had become today's enemy.

You were the best of us, Jack, she thought to herself. You always were.

"All that's left for you to take is my life, by your own hand. One must die, and one must live. No victory, no defeat. The survivor will carry on the fight. It is our destiny."

Destiny. That was what her father had told her once, in that dimly remembered time that she called her childhood. He'd said she had a great destiny ahead of her. Was this what he envisioned? Was this the end he saw for her all those years ago? Or had she failed him like she'd failed so many others?

She would never see old age, never enter her twilight years, never die a peaceful death surrounded by friends and loved ones. That wasn't the life she had chosen for herself.

Yes, choice. Life hadn't happened to her. Destiny hadn't dictated her actions. She had chosen the life she now lived, the life that was soon to end. She had met each choice on her own terms, had faced down every challenge, every enemy without hesitation, without fear.

She would do so again, one last time.

Reaching down, she withdrew her Patriot assault rifle from the harness at her hip. A good weapon, a faithful weapon that had seen her through countless battles, its casing notched and scored by years of use and wear.

Just like its owner. Her body bore the scars of the many battles she had seen in her life. Not just the long snaking scar down her abdomen, but countless other cuts, shrapnel wounds, bullet grazes, burns and stitches.

She should have died so many times, but still she lived on. A ghost, a spirit, a relic of another time.

Yet the long life of war and fighting was taking its toll. She was getting older. She could feel it, closing in on her, slow and inexorable. Old injuries that had long since healed were troubling her again, her stamina and reflexes were slowly ebbing. She was no longer the unstoppable force she'd been during the war, the young woman with boundless energy and strength who none could stand against.

She was old and past her prime. But she still had one final mission to complete. The final act in her long life.

"I'll give you ten minutes," she warned him. "In ten minutes, MiGs will come and bomb the hell out of this place. If you can beat me by then, you might just escape."

Reaching for the weapon's clip, she pushed it into the magazine port and slapped it hard to force it home, then racked back the charging handle to chamber the first round. There was a single, crisp click as the weapon's firing assembly aligned itself.

"Let's make this the greatest ten minutes of our lives, Jack."

This would be the last time they would face each other. She had spared his life during their previous encounters, knowing she had to keep him alive so he could do what he must. She had carried him as far as he could, but not now.

Not this time.

"Boss…" He was searching for the words, still trying to find a way to avoid what was about to happen. He didn't want to face her.

But he had to. Words wouldn't change that.

His body knew it, even if his mind didn't. Already she could see his muscles tightening, his posture lowering as he prepared to move, his breathing coming faster as adrenaline surged through his veins.

That's good, Jack, she thought with a sense of sad approval. That's good. Your body knows what it must do. Listen to it, just like I taught you. Don't think, just act.

"You're a soldier!" she snapped. "Finish your mission! Prove your loyalty!"

She could feel it too, the rapid beating of her heart, the blood pumping through her veins, the energy flooding her muscles, investing them with new strength and power. She felt alive, vibrant, exhilarated.

One last time, she felt the joy of battle.

She was a soldier. Whatever else they had tried to make her, she would always be a soldier, a warrior. That was how she had lived, and that was how she would die.

But if this was where she would meet her end, if this was to be her last stand, one thing was certain. She wouldn't go down without a fight. She had spent too long fighting for that life to just hand it over now.

If he wanted to complete his mission, he would have to beat her. He would have to prove himself worthy of the title of Boss, just as she had.

Come on, Jack. You can do it. I know you can.

Bringing the Patriot up to bear, she tensed, her body perfectly aligned with it through long years of practise. She was a weapon, an instrument of war. She existed only to fight and die.

"Face me!"

ooooo

_Railway Station No.1, Stalingrad, November 8th 1942_

Taking a deep breath, the young political commissar checked his watch one last time, rose up from his position behind a mound of shattered brick rubble and blew a single loud blast on his whistle.

As one, the men of the Second Battalion, 13th Rifle Division sprang to their feet and charged across the ruined rail yard, an unstoppable tide of humanity pressing forward with a single purpose. The roar of a thousand battle cries filled the air.

"Not one step back, comrades!" another commissar yelled over a loudspeaker, urging the frightened, poorly trained conscripts onward like the sheep they were. "Your Motherland needs you now! To the death!"

The first wave had made it about half way across the yard when the German defenders opened up with their emplaced MG-42 machine guns. Spitting out 1800 rounds a minute, it was impossible to even discern single shots. All that could be heard was a constant, deafening roar of death. The combined firepower of half a dozen such weapons was an awesome and terrifying sight.

The first wave was wiped out almost to a man in the space of ten seconds, simply dropping like scythed corn. The next wave suffered a similar fate as they tried to fight their way through, yet still the horrific tide of humanity pressed on, trampling right over the mangled bodies of their fallen comrades. The muddy, snow covered ground was already stained crimson with blood.

The firing from within the station complex went on, mortars and rifles adding to the deadly barrage. Nothing could survive such murderous fire.

"Poor bastards," the man now known as the End mumbled, watching the carnage unfold with solemn eyes, his craggy old face impassive as a statue. He was no stranger to suffering and death. He had seen more of both in his long life than the rest of the unit combined.

The Joy said nothing as she observed the 'battle' through her field binoculars. In truth it was nothing but a slaughter. The Soviet attackers stood no chance of taking their objective, or even surviving the assault. Those who didn't fall to German guns would be mown down by their own side as they tried to retreat.

An entire battalion, twelve hundred men, dead for nothing. It was like the terrible stories of trench warfare a quarter of a century earlier, thousands of soldiers sacrificed for a few hundred yards of blasted, cratered wasteland.

Not one step back – that had been Stalin's order after the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, and it was enforced with unwavering dedication by political commissars and special police units. Every day hundreds of young soldiers were executed for cowardice, for incompetence, and more often for simply being unlucky.

It was a desperate measure to maintain order, but these were desperate times. The German armies had been halted at the very gates of Moscow the previous year, but a renewed offensive in the south had pushed the exhausted Soviet defenders back to the very shores of the Volga. Air and artillery strikes hammered their embattled positions night and day, yet still they clung tenaciously on, fighting tooth and nail for every house, every basement, every sewer tunnel and street corner.

The scale of the destruction and slaughter in this battle was simply beyond comprehension. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of men were dying every hour, yet still it raged on without respite. In Europe there had at least been some sense of honour and respect amongst the combatants, but not here. Here the rules of warfare had ceased to exist.

This was no war of conquest or dominance. This was a war of annihilation. The final confrontation between two opposing dictatorships. And here, in a straggling, ruined industrial city called Stalingrad, it would all be decided. This was the knife edge on which the fate of the world would turn, and Joy and her newly formed Cobra unit were right in the middle of it.

"This is fucking slaughter!" the Fury growled, pounding his fist against a broken piece of sheet metal so hard that it left a visible dent.

He was well named. His prowess in battle was almost unmatched, but he was a violent, unpredictable man prone to sudden outbursts of temper. Joy had 'recruited' him from a Siberian gulag a few months ago, giving him a simple choice – join her special composite or 'C unit' and face German bullets on the battlefield, or stay in prison and face Russian ones tied to a wooden post.

In the end, even he had recognised the logic in her offer and reluctantly decided to join her, though not before bemoaning the indignity of serving under a woman. That hadn't bothered her as much as he'd hoped – she was used to such discrimination.

"We can do nothing for these men," she decided, tearing her eyes away from the battle. As heartbreaking a sight as it was, it might just provide the distraction they needed to complete their mission.

Their target today was Colonel Reinhardt Edelheim, a ruthless and highly effective SS officer charged with leading the vanguard of the German advance into Stalingrad. Her mission was to wipe out his staff officers and bring him back alive if possible, or dead if not. Either way, the Russians wanted him out of the picture.

It wouldn't be an easy task. Edelheim's command post was likely deep within the train station complex, and protected by hundreds of crack SS troops. But then, if it was easy, they wouldn't have called on her at all.

She turned to the small, disparate group of men who represented her unit. "We move. Five metre spread. Stay on me and keep low. Understand?"

"If you want me to stay on you, you only have to ask," the Fear taunted, his dark eyes flashing lecherously as he surveyed her body hidden beneath the heavy combat uniform.

Like the Fury, the Fear was another product of the Russian penal system. In his case, he had been a Lithuanian partisan seeking independence from Soviet rule before the Germans invaded. Pressed into a penal battalion and sent on virtual suicide missions, he was the only member of his unit to have survived. The manner of his survival was questionable at best, but he clearly had a strong will to live, and the skills to make it happen.

He was also the best scout she'd ever met, able to move through enemy lines virtually at will and strike where they were most vulnerable.

Joy snatched up her submachine gun and racked back the charging handle, checking that a round was chambered. It was a PPSh-41, a cheap piece of mass produced Russian shit designed to be wielded by barely trained conscripts. Its stamped metal frame and flimsy drum magazine felt like it might fall apart at any moment.

She would much rather have used a Thompson or even a captured German MP40, but decent weapons were thin on the ground in this neck of the woods.

Taking a breath of the frigid, smoke-filled air, she scrambled to her feet and hurried along the rubble strewn hallway, snow and broken glass crunching beneath her boots. She could hear the others behind her; the End's slow, laboured tread, the Fury's fast and urgent pounding, the Fear's barely audible scuffling, and the Pain's heavy thump.

The Sorrow wasn't with them. He was too valuable to risk on field operations like this. Anyway, his actual abilities in combat were limited to say the least; his value lay in his unique and inexplicable ability to communicate with the dead. She didn't know how it worked, and she didn't care to know. All she cared about was that it did.

His gifts had saved their lives more than once.

He was safely ensconced at their unit HQ in a derelict house overlooking the 9th January Square, though 'safe' was a relative term in Stalingrad. Death could come at any moment, from any direction.

Finding a window overlooking a partially collapsed alleyway below, she shouldered her rifle, clambered out and shimmied down a nearby drain pipe. She was glad of the heavy fur gloves she wore. The metal pipe was cold enough to freeze her skin on contact.

It would be dark soon. The sun, visible only as a lighter disc against the leaden grey clouds overhead, was almost touching the horizon. Already the ambient light was falling, and the temperature along with it. She wanted to be well clear of the target area before the bitter Russian night kicked in.

Dropping down into the alley, she brought the submachine gun out again and swept her surroundings. Snow-covered rubble and twisted metal lay everywhere. By the looks of it, the metal fragments belonged to an aircraft. Battle raged in the skies over Stalingrad as well as on the ground.

A heavy thump behind told her that the Pain had just landed. He was a giant of a man, towering over herself and the other members of the team, yet he moved with surprising agility despite his size.

The others followed close behind. The End, despite his age, was capable of feats of great athleticism when pressed, and had made it down the pipe without incident.

"What now, boss?" the Fear asked, his sharp, lizard-like eyes scanning their ruined surroundings. Her official codename was Joy, but they all referred to her as Boss. In Fear's case, the term carried a hint of mockery that she had had to pull him up on more than once.

"We move." She gestured to the ruined train station about a hundred yards away. The battle had died down now, though the occasional buzz of machine gun fire still resounded from within. "Fear, take point. End, cover us. Everyone else on me."

"Why me on point?" the Fear asked. He didn't appear troubled by the dangerous job. Rather, it seemed he expected praise for being selected.

"Because you're so fucking irritating," the Fury grunted. The two men had never seen eye to eye in the short time they'd known each other, and the Fear was happy to antagonise him every chance he got. "Maybe this time you'll have the good grace to die."

The Fear grinned back with malicious glee, saying nothing. He knew he didn't have to. Fury hated him enough just for existing.

"Shut up, both of you," she scolded. This was no time for personality clashes. "Fear, get moving. Watch for mines and booby traps."

"Now why didn't I think of that?" The Fear licked his thin lips, flashed a hideous grimace that might have been called a smile, and darted off, soon vanishing amongst the ruined buildings.

He was their best and indeed, only viable scout. The Pain was too big and heavy, the End too slow, while the Fury simply engaged any target he encountered, regardless of the situation.

Joy crept after him, slower and more cautious, with the others following behind.

After about thirty yards the alleyway led right into a ruined house, a hole blasted in the wall to aid troop movement. Advancing inside, she found a burned out shell that might once have been a living room.

"This is where I'll set up," the End announced, gesturing to the stairs with his Mosin-Nagant rifle. "The rooftop will give me a good field of fire over the train yard."

Joy wasn't about to argue. In matters such as this, she trusted his judgement entirely. What he didn't know about sniping wasn't worth knowing.

Leaving him behind, she picked her way through the ruined building to survey the street beyond. Several dead bodies lay sprawled on the open ground. Russian soldiers, their limbs frozen by the cold and rigor mortis. They had been there a while judging by the dusting of snow that covered them.

The dead were rarely buried here. There were too many to count.

"Anyone see Fear?" the Pain asked.

"The little shit probably deserted," Fury growled. "Remind me to shoot him next time I see him."

She ignored them. Fear fought alone. It was better for everyone that way.

"I'll go first," she said, pointing to a bombed out shop across the street. "Move fast and don't bunch up. A machine gunner won't waste ammo on single targets."

Snipers would, though. She decided not to mention that.

She exhaled, her breath misting in the cold air, gripped her submachine gun and rushed across the street. Stealth and tactics were all well and good, but when open ground had to be covered, sometimes you just had to go for it and hope for the best.

At any moment she expected some sniper to open up on her, yet no such thing happened. Slipping through a doorway and into the darkened shop front, she at last allowed herself to relax a little. She had made it unharmed.

Suddenly something landed on her shoulder. Spinning around, she brought her submachine gun up to bear, only to find herself staring into the eyes of a dead man, his face hideously contorted by pain and wounds inflicted either before or after death. He was hanging upside down from the rafters, his feet bound by thick rope. By the looks of things, he had been bayoneted repeatedly. There were stab wounds all over his body.

"Shit!" she gasped, backing away.

"A pretty sight, isn't he?" the Fear remarked, emerging from the shadows and smiling malevolently. He could sense her unease, and he relished it.

"Did you do this?" Joy demanded.

He shook his head slowly, looking almost disappointed. "Not me, Boss. Someone beat me to it."

She looked up at the corpse again. It was a German judging by the shredded, blood stained uniform. A member of the Waffen SS. No wonder they had taken their time killing him.

Then an idea came to her. Reaching up, she felt inside his tunic until her gloved hand closed around his dog tags. A single hard yank was enough to snap the chain, though she was forced to spit on them and wipe away the dried blood to discern the name.

Wilhelm Busch, a corporal in the 1st SS Panzer Corps.

The crunch of boots in the snow outside warned her that Pain and Fury had made it across the street. Both surveyed the scene, and Fury was quick to voice his opinion of the dead soldier.

"Good work," he decided.

"Pain, I need your radio," Joy said.

Personal radio units were a contradiction in terms out here. Even the most advanced radio sets were big and bulky, and expensive. The Cobra unit had only one, which she had entrusted to the Pain. He was the only one big and strong enough to carry it unencumbered.

Fishing the device out of his pack, Pain unfolded the antenna and handed it to her. She quickly fired it up and set the frequency. The other members of the team spread out to secure a rough perimeter, covering her while she worked.

"Fox, this is Hound," she began. "Over."

It only took a moment for the deep, mournful voice of the Sorrow to reply. "I had a feeling you would call."

Joy bit back her urge to rebuke him. Radio discipline had never been a concern for the Sorrow. "I need you to find someone. Wilhelm Busch, a corporal. 1st SS Panzer Corps. Find out if he knows where Edelheim is."

"It will not be easy," he warned. "The dead outnumber the living in Stalingrad."

"Try," she implored him. She understood little of how he communicated with the dead, but she did know that it was a draining experience for him. Finding one voice amongst many was even more difficult. "He can only have been dead a few hours."

"Wait." He went silent for a full minute. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard a sharp intake of breath over the background crackle of static.

Then, finally, he spoke. "I… have him. But he is resisting. He knows who I am."

Even dead men often tried to carry on the fight.

"Persuade him," she ordered. He had the ability to force the answers from reluctant spirits, though depending on their resolve and mental discipline in life, they could put up quite a resistance.

His voice was strained when he responded at last. "Edelheim's command centre is…on the ground floor. The old… ticket office." He paused. "There is…"

"Go on, Sorrow."

"There is another way in. A secret way. A sewer tunnel that runs beneath the station. There is… an access point behind the shop where Busch died. Look for a…coal bunker."

For the first time today, Joy smiled. "Good work. Hound, out." Tossing the radio back to Pain, she snatched up her weapon again. "We may have a way in. Let's move. Everyone on me!"

ooooo

"Second battalion is down thirty percent in manpower, and third battalion has burned through most of their ammunition fending off Russian counterattacks," Lieutenant Koenig reported, reading off the unit status report with grave concern. "Unless we can resupply them tonight, they won't be able to hold their forward positions for more than twenty-four hours."

Colonel Edelheim looked up from the city map and removed his reading glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily. "Will these Russian bastards never give up?"

Their advance was slowly and inexorably grinding its way towards the centre of Stalingrad, but every step was being paid for with German blood. The flow of replacements wasn't keeping up with casualties. The 6th Army was literally bleeding to death, yet still more had to be done.

They had to end this battle soon, before it consumed them all. They couldn't afford a repeat of Moscow.

ooooo

Ascending the rusted ladder with slow, agonising care, Joy paused for a moment, gathering her strength. Above her lay an iron manhole cover, fixed in place to protect the entrance to the sewer she and her companions had just crawled through.

Gripping one of her gloves in her teeth, she pulled it off and reached inside her tunic, producing a small cracked mirror mounted on a steel hook. She had found the dentist's probe amidst the rubble of a civilian hospital a couple of weeks ago, and though she had no wish to practice dentistry, it was perfect for seeing around corners and checking for booby traps.

A couple of square holes had been cast in the manhole cover, probably to aid anyone trying to lift it. Doing her best to hold her hand steady, she eased the dental probe up through the nearest hole and slowly rotated it, squinting at the dim image reflected back to her.

Above her lay a small room of some sort, perhaps an old workshop or tool shed. She could see a couple of wooden shelves against one wall, and a few crumpled boxes on the floor, but nothing that gave her cause for concern. No visible tripwires, no green cylinders, nothing.

Replacing the dental probe in her tunic, she gratefully pulled her glove back on. Already she could feel her fingers starting to numb up. She glanced down at the others, giving them a thumbs-up.

The next part required less finesse but a lot more muscle. Gripping the ladder tight, she braced her right shoulder against the manhole cover and pushed upward. For a painful moment she feared it wouldn't move and she would have to suffer the humiliation of asking the Pain to do it for her, but with a slow, gritty rasp the cover slowly rose from its mounting.

One last effort was enough to clear the lip, and then it was simply a matter of sliding it aside.

Ignoring the burn in her muscles, Joy clambered up the last few steps, crouched down by the sewer entrance and waited with her weapon up at her shoulder, just allowing her body to tune into its surroundings.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. The place absolutely reeked of stale urine, and she had to fight the urge not to gag, settling instead for wrapping a strip of cloth around her mouth and nose.

The room was in near darkness, the single bare lightbulb in the ceiling probably not having worked since the battle started, but the dim light filtering in from beneath the door provided enough illumination to see by. In any case, her eyes were well adapted to the dark.

As she'd thought, it had once been a workshop of some kind. There were still a few tools strewn across the floor; a rusted hammer, a couple of screwdrivers and some spanners. All rusted and probably useless now. More worryingly, she also spotted a hacksaw with dried blood on the blade.

A steel bucket in one corner told her where the smell was coming from. It seemed the Germans used this room as a toilet, probably emptying the bucket directly down into the sewer when they were done.

She decided not to ponder that one too closely as she crept over to the door, chancing to push it open a crack. Beyond lay a corridor, this one lit by sputtering gas lamps strung up at intervals. Clearly this was a more heavily used area.

She could hear the faint metallic clang of boots on steel rungs from below. The Fear was on his way up, with the Pain close behind. They would leave the Fury until last, knowing he was a liability in situations where stealth was the priority.

Then, suddenly, she froze. She had heard another noise, this one coming from the corridor outside. Boots scuffling across dirty concrete, moving towards her. One set. A soldier passing through on some errand, or a man about to take a piss?

Knowing her luck, it had to be the latter. Cursing her misfortune, she retraced her steps over to the manhole and waved her finger back and forth in a no-no gesture, telling them to stop what they were doing and wait.

The steps were getting close now. There was no time to retreat and replace the manhole cover. Her only option was to take her opponent out. Using her submachine gun would alert every German in the building, and though she had a knife amongst her gear, it was far from ideal either.

The myth that one could kill a man quickly and silently with a single slash across his throat was precisely that – a myth. Joy knew from experience that slitting a man's throat was a far more difficult and gruesome task, and even then it usually resulted in a minute or two of frantic struggling.

No, she needed something else.

Glancing around, her eyes scanned the room until she found what she was looking for.

Joy had few memories of her grandfather, but she did remember one piece of advice he'd given her as a child – that there wasn't much in life that couldn't be sorted out with a five pound claw hammer. True, he'd been referring to carpentry rather than killing German soldiers, but she saw little choice but to put the theory to the test.

Laying down her weapon, she snatched up the rusty hammer and backed up beside the door. It was a good solid weight in her hand, forged from a single piece of steel, its rubber grip scored and damaged by years of use.

She could hear the soldier's steps slowing as he approached the door. His tread was heavy and measured. Clearly he was a big man.

Joy took several deep breaths, trying her best to psyche herself up and get more oxygen in her blood. She wasn't pleased at the prospect of taking on a larger opponent. As she had learned to her cost, the bigger they were, the harder the fall rarely proved true. In reality the bigger they were, the harder they hit you.

She heard the metallic clunk as he gripped the door handle, and then with a creaking groan the old rusted door slid open.

This was it. She waited until he had taken two steps into the room, relieved to find he wasn't wearing a steel helmet, then moved forward, raised the hammer up high and brought it down on the top of his head with all the force and aggression she could command.

Joy considered herself at best mediocre in the art of carpentry, but she had at least learned how to drive a nail into a piece of wood, and fortunately her aim hadn't failed today. There was a moment of jarring resistance as the hammer made contact, then a dull wet crunch as it cleaved its way through bone and brain.

The effect was just as profound as a bullet to the head. He went down immediately, his legs buckling beneath him before collapsing face down with a weary sigh; a twitching, useless slab of meat now divorced from life.

Joy remained where she was, the bloody hammer still clutched in her hand, as Fear clambered nimbly up from below. He surveyed the body for a moment, then glanced at Joy with a wicked grin.

"That hit the nail on the head," he remarked.

Despite herself, she rolled her eyes. God save her from the man's grim sense of humour.

"Get the others up here," she ordered, dropping the hammer and snatching up her submachine gun. She could feel something warm and wet on her cheek, and quickly wiped away a smear of blood and brain matter, stifling a shudder of distaste.

In short order, Pain and Fury were with them. The dead German soldier they pitched down the open manhole before sliding the cover back in place. They were in.

The only problem now was finding Edelheim, capturing him and getting out of here alive.


	2. Chapter 2 - Cold War

"_Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look on them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death." – Sun Tzu_

**Chapter 2 – Cold War**

_Stalingrad, November 8th 1942_

The mood in Edelheim's command HQ was one of fraught silence, broken only by the boom and rattle of distant artillery as the venerable leader surveyed his field map of the city, his shrewd military mind analysing the complex situation. German and Russian positions had been plotted as accurately as possible, though they were often little more than educated guesses. Some buildings and key road junctions had been known to change hands half a dozen times in the space of a single day.

"This," Edelheim finally said, pointing to a big apartment block overlooking September 9th Square that had been identified as an enemy strongpoint. "This is the key to unlocking Stalingrad. We must take this building."

Koenig frowned, shaking his head slowly. "It's heavily defended, sir. We've lost two companies in that sector already."

The older man nodded, reaching for his packet of cigarettes and tapping one free. "They're afraid of it. They're afraid of what will happen if they lost it." He lit up and took a long, thoughtful draw, the vague battle plan already crystalizing into a decisive course of action. "If we take this sector, we collapse their left flank and roll up their entire defensive line. Stalingrad will be ours."

"It'll take time to assemble…" Koenig trailed off, alerted by a muted thump in the corridor outside. "What was that?"

But Edelheim's attention was focussed on the map, as if he could somehow master the situation through sheer force of will.

Another thump, followed by a low groan of pain.

Something was wrong. "Sir, there's –"

He never got a chance to finish. A crossbow bolt to the throat destroyed his windpipe. With blood pumping from severed arteries, he fell to his knees, clawing desperately at the bolt now protruding from the back of his neck. He was dead; he just didn't know it yet.

Fear was moving before Koenig hit the ground, slapping another bolt into his crossbow as he darted in through the doorway with inhuman speed. The other officers in the room were mostly support staff, more used to wielding pens than rifles. A second man fell to his weapon, a poison tipped bolt lodged in his chest.

On the other side of the room, Joy kicked open the door and rushed in a few seconds later, silently cursing the Fear's rash attack. She had explicitly ordered him not to move until she gave the command, intending to strike from both sides simultaneously. Still, they were committed now – there was no choice but to see it through.

Her eyes scanned the room for targets. The dozen or so men in there were panicked and shocked by the sudden attack, but that wouldn't last long. To her right, a young private with blonde hair was bringing his rifle to bear on her. Without hesitation she raised her submachine gun and put a burst into his centre mass, spraying his blood against the wall behind.

Beside her, Pain had seized a man who tried to charge him with a bayonet, lifted him bodily off the ground and crushed his throat. Their mission might be to capture Edelheim, but for the rest of the men in the command centre there would be no mercy.

Joy could see Edelheim now, exactly like in his file photograph. A tall man in his late forties, ruggedly handsome and aristocratic looking, his dark receding hair slicked back, which somehow added to his air of distinguished charisma. He was reaching for the Luger pistol holstered at his hip.

Instinctively she brought the PPSh to bear, knowing she had the drop on him, but a sudden blur of movement to her right drew her attention away. A young staff officer was charging her with a K98 bolt action rifle. A poor choice for a close action fight like this.

Twisting aside to avoid his clumsy attempt at bayoneting her, she raised the PPSh and fired from the hip. But rather than the short controlled burst she'd intended, the submachine gun carried on spitting fire as if it had a mind of its own. The trigger's retaining spring must have snapped, trapping the fire selector on full automatic. It was all she could do to keep a grip of the wildly kicking weapon as it discharged its full magazine in a single disastrous burst.

The effect on her target was akin to being passed through a paper shredder. He collapsed to the ground, his body quite literally shredded.

"I think you got him," the Fear taunted.

Joy said nothing as she dropped the now useless weapon, its barrel glowing red, and unsheathed her combat knife before rounding on Edelheim again. The whole mission was a bust if they didn't get him.

But her brief distraction had bought him time to draw his own weapon. Levelling it at the woman now stalking towards him, he fired. But to his disbelief, she was no longer there. She ducked aside just as the weapon discharged, twisting her body to avoid the shot. He saw a brief cloud of blood as the 9mm projectile sliced her shoulder, but still she came on.

Hurriedly adjusting his aim, he squeezed the trigger again, but suddenly her knife leapt out and slashed his forearm, severing tendons. The Luger fell from nerveless fingers, and he cried out in pain as she seized him, twisting his arm behind his back.

Joy was elated. She had him.

Now all she needed was to…

"Die, you fucking bitch!" a guard screamed in German.

Turning towards the source of the sound, she was just in time to see another guard draw a pistol. Where was the rest of her unit? They were supposed to have been covering her while she apprehended Edelheim!

Pain was busy pummelling an unfortunate staff officer's head into the wall, while Fury was somewhere in the corridor outside. She couldn't see him, but she could hear him bellowing curses in between bursts of automatic gunfire.

She felt a momentary upwelling of anger and frustration at the knowledge that nobody was covering her. Each member of her team was fighting as individuals instead of working together as a unit. They were ignoring everything she had tried to teach them.

An instant later she pushed those emotions down. Recriminations could come later. Right now survival was the priority.

Releasing her grip on Edelheim, Joy rushed forward, swept her knife up and drove it into the man's throat. With his blood coating her face, he staggered back and collapsed, dead almost as soon as he hit the floor.

But her lapse had bought Edelheim a few precious moments to recover. Whirling around, Joy was just in time to see him stagger out through the doorway and disappear into the corridor beyond.

Gripping the bloodied knife, she started forward in pursuit, only for a gloved hand to reach out and grasp her arm.

Spinning around with the knife raised, she found herself face to face with the sharp, lean features of the Fear.

"We can't stay here, Boss!" he hissed, anxiously watching the corridor outside. They had killed or wounded the inhabitants of the command post, but already shouts were echoing from deeper inside the building. "Time to go!"

She barely felt the pain from the gunshot wound in her shoulder, though she was curiously aware of the warm blood seeping down her arm. She would tend to the wound later.

"We're not leaving without Edelheim," she said, her jaw set with stubborn determination. This mission was all for nothing if they didn't kill or capture him.

"We're not leaving with him, that's for sure. They know we're here. It's over, Boss."

"Boss, come on!" Pain yelled, leaning out into the corridor to snap off a burst from his submachine gun. "We have to leave now! Fury, get back here!"

"Fuck off!" she heard Fury thunder back, accompanied by a long burst of fire from some kind of heavy machine gun.

"Forget him," Fear decided. "If he wants to die here, let him."

Before Joy could say anything further, the slender, nimble man had darted out into corridor, using Pain's considerable bulk as a human shield while he retreated.

"Fear!" Joy yelled after him. It was a futile effort – he was long gone. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she snatched up Edelheim's Luger and rushed after him. "Pain, Fury, we are leaving!"

Sprinting through the corridor and taking a sharp left, she practically ran right into a German soldier heading in the opposite direction. Almost without breaking stride she jammed the Luger against his forehead and put three rounds in him.

"Pain, watch your back!" she warned.

"And who will watch yours?" she heard him reply sardonically.

Shoving her way through the door to the makeshift latrine, Joy was just in time to see Fear lifting the drain cover aside, struggling with the heavy weight.

He looked up, his lips parting in an amused grin. "What took you so long, Boss?"

Joy took a step towards him, tempted to put a round through his head at that moment. Clearly the man didn't give a shit about any of them – he was out for nobody but himself.

Before she could act however, Pain pushed his way past her, shoved Fear aside and gripped the drain cover, lifting it and hurling it against the wall as easily as if it were a sheet of cardboard.

"No time for talking," he warned, leaping down into the darkness below.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Fear agreed, following him.

Joy gritted her teeth, brimming with anger at the insubordination she'd witnessed. She was just clambering down the ladder when Fury burst into the room, a German MG-42 heavy machine gun clutched in his hands, its long belt of ammunition trailing along the floor. He was covered in cuts and bruises, his battle uniform shredded, yet he seemed not even to notice.

"The fuckers ran away," he said, as if that explained everything. Heedless of the danger, he leaned out into the corridor, levelled the weapon at the far end and pulled the trigger.

The din of the big weapon discharging on full automatic was absolutely deafening, drowning out even his ferocious battle cry as his full rage was unleashed. The foot-long muzzle flare illuminated the gloom like lightning. The barrel began to glow hot, melting through his gloves to burn the skin of his hands, but he didn't care. All he cared about was the death he was bringing to his most hated enemies.

Shaking her head, Joy released her grip on the ladder and allowed herself to drop down into the sewer below.

ooooo

_Soviet Command Centre, September 9__th__ Square_

Charles Hunt he glanced up from his paperwork to see Joy standing before him, still in her muddy, torn battlefield uniform. She had come in straight off the front line to report back to him, wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible.

His 'office' was a former bedroom in the partially ruined apartment block that served as their company headquarters. There was no electricity, no heating, no running water. Light came courtesy of a pair of gas lamps that hissed and sputtered as if they might give out at any moment.

"Did you get him, then?" he asked without preamble. Small talk had never been a skill of his.

Joy said nothing for a long moment. Her hands, clasped behind her back, tightened into fists. "There were complications," she said tersely.

Leaning back in his chair, Hunt removed his reading glasses. Even in the filth and squalor of Stalingrad, Hunt somehow managed to keep himself clean, well dressed and well groomed, his dark hair neatly combed, his moustache precisely trimmed.

Joy suspected he'd been a bank manager in another life.

"What sort of complications, exactly?"

Hunt was a field attaché for British Military Intelligence Division 6, commonly known as MI6. Officially he was Joy's liaison with the Russians, but she knew the real reason he was here.

He was in Stalingrad to keep an eye on her. She was something of a black sheep of the special forces family. The British didn't trust her, the Americans didn't know what to do with her, and the Russians barely tolerated her. After all, a twenty year old 'girl' in charge of a unit of freaks, criminals and old men was a diplomatic nightmare just waiting to happen. She and her unit were nothing but an experiment, a brief indulgence that everyone expected to fail.

Determined to prove them wrong, she had done everything in her power to hold the unit together, to curb their wilder excesses and ensure they completed the tasks allocated to them. Thus far however the battle had been a losing one.

"We were forced to move early," she said, unwilling to elaborate. She wasn't going to pin the blame on specific members of her unit, regardless of her own feelings on the matter. As their commander, the blame ultimately fell on her. "Edelheim got away in the confusion."

"Our Russian comrades aren't going to like that."

Her eyes blazed for a moment. Let's see you infiltrate a heavily defended enemy position and make it out alive, Hunt. "It's war. Things don't always go to plan."

"Indeed." Hunt reached for the half full glass of whisky on his desk and tossed back the contents in one gulp. Talisker, his favourite brand, imported from Scotland.

He surveyed her for a long moment, saying nothing. His silence was more damning than any recrimination. He knew something he wasn't telling her, and he was trying to make her sweat by withholding the truth.

"We came close. We'll get him next time," she said, knowing how hollow her words sounded.

"There's not likely to be a 'next time', I'm afraid."

Joy frowned. "What do you mean?"

He held up a sheet of thin, cheap paper. A telex. "Orders from London. You and the Cobras are being evacuated from Stalingrad."

"Evacuated? Why?"

As if on cue, the building resounded with a deep, rolling boom from somewhere further off in the city. Fine streams of dust filtered down from the cracked ceiling.

"That's why," Hunt explained. "The Germans have brought up their heavy siege guns. They're massing two SS panzer divisions for their final assault, and when it comes they'll pound us to dust." He shrugged. "Stalingrad is going to fall."

The casual manner in which he delivered the news caused anger to flare up within her. He was talking about the city as if it were a football game, to be won or lost and then discussed later over a few quiet pints at the local pub.

"Technical specialists and non-essential personnel are being evacuated over the Volga. You have a place reserved on a boat tomorrow evening. If you have any interest in seeing your next birthday, I suggest you be on it. I know I will be."

"We're not technical specialists, Charles," she reminded him. "We're soldiers. We're here to fight."

"No, you're military advisors," he corrected her.

America was still officially neutral in this war. They couldn't be seen to be taking an active part in the conflict, which was part of the reason they had sent Joy. As a woman, few would believe she was part of the US military. She had no dog tags, no official service record, no proof that she even existed. Her entire life was off the books.

"Washington and London sent you here to assist the Red Army in the defence of Stalingrad. Pretty soon there won't be an army left to assist, therefore your mission here is over. Anyway, the powers that be aren't convinced this 'Cobra Unit' of yours is working out. They're bringing you home, pending evaluation."

Which meant they were being shit-canned.

She could take it no longer. Weeks of pent-up frustration finally got the better of her.

"This isn't over until I say so, damn it!" she snapped. "Just because my men don't sit around the fire each night drinking hot chocolate and singing songs doesn't mean they're any less of a unit. For God's sake, Stalingrad is the most important battle of the war and you're asking us to run away with our tails between our legs?"

To her surprise, his vivid green eyes flashed with anger.

"I'm asking you to follow orders, young lady!" he snapped, rising up from his desk. He was a big man, standing a couple of inches taller than herself, and more than a little intimidating when roused to anger. "There's more to being a soldier than fighting and killing. Anyone can do that. Being a soldier means obeying orders, even if you don't agree with them. You might be a child of the Philosophers, but out here you're just a pair of boots on the ground. Do we understand each other?"

Joy chewed her lip, sorely tempted to tell Hunt to ram his orders and his patronising attitude up his arse. Of course he knew she had connections amongst the Philosophers, that her father had been a member of the Wisemen's Committee. Men like Hunt made it their business to know such things, but that didn't make her feel any better.

"Yes, we understand each other."

His expression softened a little. "Look, I know you don't want to leave a job unfinished, but believe me, there'll be plenty of other battles before this war is over. You've been fighting on the front lines for two months without relief. Really, how much longer do you think you can go on like this?"

How long indeed?

She hadn't wanted to admit it to anyone, even herself, but the constant demands of fighting, the inevitable injuries that came with it, the sleepless nights, the limited food and the relentless, creeping cold were gradually wearing her down. She'd lost twenty pounds since coming here, her face now drawn and haggard, her eyes ringed by dark circles of fatigue.

"I'm fine," she lied.

Rounding his desk, Hunt laid a hand on her shoulder. Her injured shoulder. It was meant to be a casual, conciliatory gesture, but she knew why he'd done it. He could see she was hurt.

She managed to keep her face impassive as he squeezed a little, but her eyes betrayed the pain that blazed outward from her shoulder.

"Caught yourself a Blighty one there by the looks of things," he observed.

"Just a scratch."

He smiled. "As you Americans are fond of saying, don't bullshit a bullshitter. Get it looked at, for God's sake. I don't need you dying of gangrene the day before your evacuation."

"I want to go out tomorrow," she said, evading his instruction. "On patrol."

Hunt's eyes narrowed. "Denied."

"You said our boat was waiting tomorrow night. What else are we supposed to do except twiddle out thumbs on the dock? Give us one last patrol. We'll make some trouble for the Germans, take a few more of their officers out of circulation, then we'll leave. How does that sound?"

"One last hurrah, eh?"

"Something like that."

The older man surveyed her for several seconds, as if trying to detect some hidden intent behind her request, then finally he smiled. "You know, if we had a dozen of you, this war would be over by now."

She returned his smile, though it lacked warmth. "If you had a dozen of me, this war would never have started."

ooooo

The Cobra unit's base of operations was the dingy basement of a nearby house. Bombing and shelling had rendered the house above uninhabitable, but below ground it was still possible to survive, after a fashion. It was hardly a sprawling French chateau, but it served their purpose.

"Ow! Damn it!" Fury growled as a Soviet nurse bandaged his burned hands. Holding a heavy machine gun by the barrel while firing on full automatic had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he was paying the price for it now.

"Stop complaining," Pain said, leaning against a stack of sandbags fashioned into a crude chair as he wolfed down stale bread and cheese. "You still have the use of your hands. What do you have to worry about?"

Fury shot him an angry glare. "You might not feel pain, but I do. Ow!"

The nurse looked nervous as she finished up her work. She had reason to be. His exposed arms and hands were covered in tattoos, as was the rest of his body; all of it announcing that he had come from a Gulag. Crucifixes, numbers, symbols and pictures of guys fucking bears formed a complex code that told those who knew how to read them which prison he'd done time in, and for how long.

"I'll come back to change the dressings tomorrow," she said, packing away her limited medical kit as fast as she could. "In the mean time, try to keep them clean. Burns get infected easily."

The End had nothing to say in this discussion. He was lying in a corner, fast asleep and snoring loudly, his plate of coarse bread and meat almost untouched. He had accounted for a dozen German soldiers today, including three officers – not bad for an old man. They had long since lost count of the number of men he'd killed since arriving in Stalingrad.

Fury looked down at his heavily bandaged hands. "Great. How am I supposed to do that in a shit hole like Stalingrad?"

Reaching for the bottle of vodka beside him, he yanked the cork out with his teeth and took a deep gulp. That was all the pain relief he needed.

He almost jumped when a pair of heavy work gloves landed right in his lap.

"What the hell?"

Glancing up, he watched as Fear released himself from the rafters he'd been clinging to, dropping nimbly to the ground a few feet away.

"What are you about, Fear?" Fury demanded.

The slender, sharp-featured man drew himself up to his full height and flashed what might have been called a smile. "A gift… from our friends in the Wehrmacht. Took them from a flame thrower trooper, before I…" He shrugged, feeling no need to go on.

Setting aside the bottle of vodka, Fury examined the gloves. Designed to protect their user from the extreme heat of a flamethrower, they were both thermally resistant and a good barrier against dirt and bacteria. In short, they were exactly what he needed.

"This another one of your jokes?" he demanded.

Spotting the End's untouched meal, Fear snatched the plate up and ate like a starved man. "Take them, or don't. I don't care."

"Hmph." Hardly glowing praise, but it was about as close as he was likely to come to gratitude.

For once, his scowl eased and he looked down at the gloves again. "A flame thrower, eh?" he mused, already visualising the destruction he could spread with such a weapon.

The conversation was interrupted when the door flew open and Joy strode in, looking tired and unhappy.

"What news, Boss?" Fear asked.

Changing direction, she strode over to him, grabbed the slender man by his tunic and shoved him back against the wall. "What news?" she repeated through clenched teeth. "I'll tell you what news, Fear. We almost got killed today – all of us. You were supposed to be covering me while I took down Edelheim, but all you could think about was yourself.

Releasing her grip, she turned her wrath on the two other men who had accompanied her into the train station.

"None of you have learned anything I tried to teach you!" Her Russian was becoming more broken as she struggled for control. "I have tried to turn you into a unit, but every time I show trust in you, you let me down." She exhaled slowly, shaking her head. "Washington, London and Moscow want this unit to fail. And you know what? I think they'll get their wish."

Joy could say nothing more to them. She had no pep talk, no inspiring words to motivate them all. She just felt drained and exhausted.

Letting the matter drop, she turned away and walked through to the basement's second room. Partitioned off from the main living space by a thick woollen blanket, it was about ten feet wide and fifteen feet long, with enough space for a small bed, a desk on which to write reports, and a wash stand. This was her quarters, such as they were.

Hunt had insisted she sleep separately from the rest of her unit, not just because she was a woman, but because she was their leader. A leader shouldn't associate themselves with the men they led. That was his philosophy, at least.

Unlatching the straps on her combat webbing, she allowed it to fall on the floor, glad to be free of the weight. This done, she unbuttoned her ripped, bloodied, mud-covered tunic and did likewise, leaving her wearing just a thin undershirt. She made her way over to the wash basin and unbuttoned the shirt, wincing at the moment in her injured shoulder as she shrugged out of it.

"Shit," she said under her breath, examining the wound in her cracked, grimy mirror.

The 9mm Luger round had torn through the deltoid muscle at her shoulder, leaving a snaking wound about two inches long. The bleeding had slowed to a steady ooze, though dried blood still coated her arm. She didn't think it had done too much damage. If it had been a little further to the right, it would likely have shattered the bone and put her out of action for good.

She'd been lucky.

Then again, if she'd been lucky she wouldn't have taken the hit in the first place.

She kept a bottle of vodka on the writing desk. She'd never considered herself a heavy drinker, but sometimes when she came back from the front line she was still fired up. The vodka helped take the edge off.

Steeling herself, she took a deep gulp, forcing herself to swallow. The potent drink burned its way down her throat, lighting a fire in her stomach that blazed outward, easing away the pain of her numerous injuries.

The second lot of vodka she splashed over the wound, gritting her teeth as the alcohol stung the torn flesh. Still, she'd rather endure a little pain than end up with gangrene. Most soldiers who died here died as a result of infection, not the wounds themselves.

Unfolding a small suture kit, she went to work stitching the wound back together, grimacing each time the needle bit into her flesh. Her sewing skills were mediocre at best, but after five minutes or so she'd made half a dozen small stitches to hold it together.

Taking another sip of vodka, she surveyed herself in the mirror, appraising her appearance for what felt like the first time in weeks. She'd never decided if she was an attractive woman or not, whether her features could be considered beautiful. It didn't matter much to her either way. She wasn't one of those pampered, preened women she saw so often back home, always clad in immaculate dresses designed to flaunt their bodies, hair perfectly styled, makeup flawless.

No doubt they would be horrified by her appearance at that moment, with her unwashed hair hanging in disarray, her face smeared with grime, soot and blood, her body covered with cuts, grazes and bruises. She was thin too, her ribs plainly visible against pale skin, her cheeks sunken, her eyes hollow.

Vanity wasn't one of her vices, but even she recognised that she looked like hell. She'd been fighting every day almost since her arrival, and it was taking its toll on her, both physically and mentally.

Ten minutes later, courtesy of some water from her canteen and a wash cloth, she at least looked a little better, even if she didn't feel it. Sitting on her bed, she was just lighting up a cigar when the drape parted and the Sorrow walked in, somehow managing to move without making a sound.

Tall, lean, pale and gaunt, and with piercing blue eyes hidden behind thick glasses, there was something unnerving about the man from the first moment one met him. He dealt with the dead, and somehow, Joy always felt that part of him remained in that shadowy other place where they resided.

The other Cobras tended to stay away from him, treating him with, if not respect, then at least a certain wariness and caution that normal people were not afforded. Even Joy was a little unsure around him, and that was rare indeed for her.

He surveyed her for a long moment, then smiled. But it was a strange half smile, as if he'd just heard the punch line of a familiar joke. "It is good to see you again, Joy."

Unlike the others, he never called her Boss. He never had.

Joy took a draw on the cigar as she stared back at him. The Cobras each bore the scars of the prolonged fighting at Stalingrad, and the Sorrow was no different. He had never been a robust looking man, but even she could see the difference in him. He was tired and worn, his constant forays into the spirit world slowly sapping his strength.

For some reason, it made her feel better. At least it reminded her that he was indeed human.

"You were gone a long time," she observed.

He nodded. "I was… conversing with Lieutenant Koenig after you sent him on his way." Again that curious half smile. "He was most disappointed to have been killed by a woman."

"Most men are." She cocked a blonde eyebrow. "Even the dead are giving me a hard time these days."

The Sorrow said nothing.

"That was a joke."

"I know."

Joy let that one go. Humour had never been his forte.

His piercing gaze moved to her shoulder. "You're hurt."

"It's just a scratch," she said, feeling strangely defensive. "No big deal."

"You push yourself too hard." He lowered himself down onto the edge of the bed. "Even you can't keep fighting forever."

"It's not like you to be so concerned," she said, surprised. Normally he expressed little interest in anyone or anything in the physical world. It wasn't that he didn't care, but almost as if their wellbeing was a foreign concept to him. "I thought you were more interested in the dead."

"I would rather not see you become one of them, Joy," he admitted. He seemed poised to say more, then thought better of it.

She shrugged, dismissing the notion. "Well, it looks like you'll get your wish. Hunt's pulling the plug, shipping us out of Stalingrad."

"When?"

"Tomorrow night. We'll put in one last patrol, make some trouble, then leave."

"Don't go," he said suddenly.

Joy frowned. "What?"

Without warning he reached out and grasped her wrist, staring straight into her eyes. "Tomorrow. The patrol. Don't go, Joy. Just get on the boat and leave."

"Why? What's going to happen tomorrow?"

Sorrow couldn't see the future any more than she could. At least, not that he'd ever admitted to her. Sometimes she wondered though.

He said nothing, just kept staring at her. Cold seemed to radiate out from his grip, creeping up her arm.

"Sorrow, as your commander, I order you to tell me," she said, managing to keep her voice calmer than she felt. "What will happen to us tomorrow?"

"He's coming for you," the Sorrow replied, speaking in a voice that was not his own. It was a dead man's voice, cold and hollow. The mere sound raised goosebumps.

Suddenly he released his grip and stood up, pale and shaking.

"I've said all I can," he whispered. "Listen to me, Joy. Just this once. Don't go."


End file.
